Bronze, Silver and Golden Age of Comics

The Bronze, Silver and Golden Age of Comics

Now comics books are pretty much sorted into the three stages of comics, bronze age, silver age and the golden age.

Starting with the Golden Age, this was the beginning of many of the well-known superheroes and villains; Batman, Superman, Captain America. This is when comics where starting, sometime in the late 1930's during the beginning of World War II, most made to raise morale during the depressing times of the war. For example; the Captain America #1 shows Captain America punching Adolf Hitler in the face, if that isn't raising morale, I don't know what it. The Golden Age of Comics ended in the early 1950's.

The Silver Age of Comics began in the early 1950's and ended in 1970. Comics had to now follow the Comics Code Authority, which says that comics can't show disrespect toward policemen, judges or government officials, no sympathy must be shown towards wrong-doers, no excessive violence, no scenes of horror, no scenes of evil, etc. This meant most of the villains had to become less bad and more goofy, even the Joker.

Following, the Bronze Age of Comics began in 1970 to 1985, this is where the Comics Code Authority started to become ignored, leading with storylines which included racism, drugs, alcoholism and urban poverty. Stories became more dark, this is was a great chance to rewrite origin stories for characters, such as; Iron Man's alcoholism, Speedy's drug addiction and the death of Gwen Stacy.

Lastly, bringing up to date to today's comics, the Modern Age of Comics, beginning in 1985 to the present. This allowed most comics to have more psychological complex characters, betrayal and grim scenes of violence and horror. Origins and storylines became more dark and hate and sympathy was felt for both villains and heroes. More complex stories like Crisis on Infinite Earths occurred, this was so writers could, again, rewrite the backstory to superheroes, making them more dark and worthwhile to readers.